The Trouble With Time by Lexi Revellian

are you doing?” Floss was staring at him in horror, book forgotten in her hand.
    “Cutting out my chip.”
    “I can’t believe people are microchipped in 2045, like dogs.” She got up and came over to take a look.
    “Once America got them, it was just a matter of time till we did.”
    “The civil liberties people are okay with that, are they?”
    “It got passed on the nod when New Alliance got its massive majority in ’33. Voters’ main worry back then was timecrime screwing up the future, not personal freedom. They probably still should be worrying, but they don’t know that. And there’s the convenience – a chip and a dataphone and you’re set.” He got back to work, then drew in his breath sharply. Hell’s teeth . He couldn’t see properly what he was doing, that was the problem.
    “D’you want help with that?” she asked, uncertainly. He handed her the knife. “What am I looking for? How big is it?”
    “About the size and shape of a grain of rice.”
    “Okay.”
    He clenched his teeth while she poked delicately around in the bloody hole he had created. Though outwardly calm, she bit her lip and apologized each time he involuntarily flinched. After what seemed like a long time she said, relief in her voice, “Is this it?”
    He took the tiny cylinder from her. “Yes. Thanks.”
    She cleaned the wound for him and applied a plaster, then went back to her book. Jace put on his shirt and looked around the room. He picked up a small bronze of a reclining woman, placed his chip on the marble floor, and smashed it. After throwing the fragments over the terrace wall, he returned to the computer.
    He did a quick sprint around the internet, picking up on the major stuff he’d missed in the past five years; less than he’d imagined. A general election (the same lot won), terrorist attacks, celebrity scandals, minor wars in far-off places. Most things remained much the same; the big news item he was looking for was not there. Something though was niggling him: why had Quinn abducted Floss? Was it IEMA business or private enterprise? Both seemed equally unlikely. He looked her up. Nothing at all, and this struck him as peculiar, particularly since privacy rules had been a lot more lax thirty years before. You’d expect to find something , if only an archive Facebook page.
    Finally he started poking around in Quinn’s digital life, tracing the sites he had used, the people he had contacted. Quinn had been promoted, had been running the whole of IEMA Intelligence. Kayla’s name cropped up. He let out a laughing gasp – she’d got the job that used to be his own, then taken over Quinn’s. Predictable, once he thought about it – she’d had the potential right from when she joined.
    He searched for emails from her to Quinn. They filled two pages. As he read them in chronological order his face set. These were work emails, starting with routine queries as she adjusted to her promotion; crisp and business-like emails from a woman getting on top of her job. But the sign-offs . . . intimate, witty, delightful. He remembered when he had been the recipient of emails like that from Kayla, the effect they’d had on him.
    Quinn’s appointment diary: search Kayla .
    From mid-2046, the entry 7.30 am Kayla’s flat cropped up most weeks, always on a weekday. By the end of 2047, he was taking her to the Ritz, the Opera and Hoxton Studio. He must have left his wife by then and could see her openly; had evenings and weekends free, and was out to impress. That’s when he’d got himself fit, no doubt. 2049, and they went less frequently to the classy venues; she was coming to his apartment.
    Jace tried to calm his breathing. He thought of all the nights he’d lain fully dressed under the thin duvet, hungry, too cold to sleep. He’d warmed himself at thoughts of Kayla, remembering her, imagining what she was doing, thinking she’d be missing him. She had waited a year or so, it seemed. What had he expected,